What is the relevance of the Civil War today?

Kraig McNutt
Robert Hicks pointed out a great question to me one day, challenging me asking, “What is the ‘relevancy’ of the Civil War today? Especially for growing minorities in the U.S. What IS the relevancy?

Sharon Troy Centanne
People of all races have freedom from slavery. And of course, it is fascinating to research and to re-enact!

Tony Estes
The relevance is rooted in state’s rights. One only has to look around at the recent Arizona immigration law or the states lawsuits against Obama’s new health care legislation. This war between federalism and state’s rights date back to our founding as a nation through today. And the civil war was the strongest and bloodiest battle of this war. Hopefully we learned we are stronger as one unified nation.

Jon Duncan
The relevancy will become quickly apparent as politics continue to polarize, the three branches of goverment grind to a halt and erode, and violence directed against political leaders increases. Same old story since the first band of primitives.

Katherine Hunt Arabis
Ditto Tony. Sad, we are still basically fighting the same battle, in a manner of speaking.

Kraig McNutt
Something worth chewing on Tony, for sure. It’s a much tougher question than the first reading of it. How do we make the ACW relevant to people who, shall we say, “don’t have a dog in the hunt?”

Rayna Timmons-Boyles
I believe the number one thing to learn from it is how tragic things can become over misunderstandings, poor communication, and people abusing their positions in leadership at the cost of honorable people serving those leaders! After ALL these years this is still one of the most misunderstoods wars!

Bill Dennison
As long as you have the likes of Roland Martin fanning the flames of bigotry and neo-Confederates pining for the restoration of a government under which they never lived a single day, trying to make any sense at all of the WBTS to someone who has no direct connectivity to the conflict will be a daunting task.

Derek Peck
The relevency is the heritage that we as Americans share. Those of us whose ancestors have been here for hundreds of years and even those who have been adopted into the American family through attaining citizenship have a common thread. If we don’t remember the mistakes that our ancestors have made, how can we fix the problems of the future. There were mistakes made on both sides before, during, and after the war. The rift that separated the two countries is still healing even today, and there is no way to allow that wound to heal unless people of all genders, races, and ideals make an effort to bridge the gap. Unfortunately we live in a fallen world and mankind is always causing the same kind of grief that was displayed so obviously in politics before the war, the bloodshed during the war, and reconstruction afterwards. The relevency is to not make the same mistakes and to give future generations incentive to do the same by being a good example.

Gregory Mitchell
Relevance. How about this. The federal leviathan we have for government today began with the War Between The States. The War was, among other things, a power struggle between the federal government and the state governments for supremacy on issues of Constitutional power. While the Constitution was with the states, might apparently makes right.

Jay McMullan
What we learned from the War for Southern Independence is that we do not live in a free country. States like Arizona should have every right to enact immigration laws like they have. A state also has every right to secede from this union if their people choose to. It is amazing that countries under the Soviet bloc have gained their independence where our states’ sons were killed trying to do the same thing.

Ursula Miller
face it, this country is so HUGE – there is enough room for some independence – and they want to give Puerto Rico Statehood – sure – I think Texas is big enough to be a country – for certain – my aunt always felt Boston and Mass in general was it’s own country? You tell me!

Kraig McNutt
The 2010 U.S. budget for battlefield preservation is just $10 million. That is what was given to the CWPT. That is such a paltry amount compared to the waste and abuse we see. But the bigger point is how that amount makes a statement by the govt that battlefield preservation is not valued at all. The answer is with people like us, making the difference in small victories here and there. Relevance to our community is the key.

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About CWG

The Civil War Gazette (CWG) is published by Kraig McNutt, Director of The Center for the Study of the American Civil War. The CWG was first launched on to the World-wide Web in 1995.

The Civil War Gazette allows the first-hand participants - both common soldier and civilian - to tell the story of their experience of the Civil War from their perspective; through letters, diaries, newspapers articles, and other authentic first-hand accounts.

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